


When in Fódlan

by Cirrocumulus (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Eventual Smut, F/M, Love Triangles, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Tragic Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-04 00:31:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21188570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Cirrocumulus
Summary: When ‘The Blade Breaker', oldest champion of the arena, brings his only daughter to watch a duel at the Collosseum no one could have anticipated her getting forced to become the new mentor of a group of gladiators.In the arena, nothing counts but the turn of a thumb, and with the goddess touched Emperor Rhea at the top of the food chain the manmade beasts might yet revolt - or break entirely. To entertain the masses, one might as well cast aside their humanity, or hold onto it like a red string of fate.Though the path may be paved with tragedies, one must realise......all roads lead here.





	When in Fódlan

The crowd cheers.

Roars like laughter and laughter akin to roars flow through the open air, rip into flesh and bones and chill blood. The coldness sweeps like lightning, and the spastic movement of overeager bodies has them collide with each other like waves, crashing against one another in the storm of humanity.

She stands between sweat and tears and holds her gaze steady. Beside her the people shout in frantic joy, yet all she can manage is a frown, and the man next to her holds one of his own. Supposedly, happiness comes at a cost, always, and she knows this well. Yet when she glances over to see deep gashes that grew into scars she begins to admit that such a cost is, perhaps, not always worth it.  
He wears his with the pride of a living man, and chuckles as his bright eyes find her own.

The story that his body tells is bold and brash, and the brandished skin glistens in the afternoon sun. He is the harrowed hero of old, here as nothing but a hull of his former self, and little do the viewers or his daughter know of his fame. Nothing of his posture states that he tries to reclaim it, anyhow.  
Here, they are shadows, the both of them, and the hall filled with the hunger for a spectacle vibrates with life.

Here, they could be little less than phantoms.

“Is it how you thought it'd be, kid?”

_“I, for one, find it utterly boring. I could just...sleep...some more...”_

His voice comes at a distance, because the crowd is yet too loud, as is the voice in her head. She casts her gaze back down below, to dust and death and droughts of the ironic kind. Because there is no water for the victor, only a puddle of blood near feet, and the metallic stench must be unbearable, but so is the sweat.

Down in the arena white hair shines with the brightness of red specks, a mural under the sun, painted with dirt and grime. The woman stands in front of a crushed skull, the bones there now brittle remains of a head, squashed and stained with whatever matter can yet be described as a brain.

She holds on to a bloodied axe, the weapon dripping the red liquid like molten metal, and her expression is fierce and full of fire, even from afar. Her ragged breathing has her chest rise up and down in a rhythm of the erratic kind, and as she wipes blood from her cheek it stains her hands evermore.

The brute of a man below her feet yet twitches, fingers digging into the dust below as though they could grasp sand like time. A cavity in his head spurts out blood, fountain-esque. The thirst to see the red liquid is obviously sparkling in the eyes of the crowd, as the smiles glisten with fangs. They are, perhaps, as much of beasts as the corpse on the ground.

“Kosta the animal is dead!”

The people rejoice once more, loud and lingering.

It is a chant, really, the most primal of shouts.

“Not exactly.”

This joy is a hollow kind, and swords should protect instead. Here, they are wielded as toys for others to enjoy, and reek of unpleasant ends and unfinished business. A life can be snuffed out so quickly, and making it into a sport for scares and scars leaves a feeling of guilt behind.

“You don't seem to enjoy it Byleth, kid.”

She shakes her head in response and sits back down, away from the crunching sound of bones breaking. In the distance, a lone head is held up through the grasp of bloodied locks of hair. Even from afar, with the other people blocking her view, she can see it yet, her seating spot near the podium to blame for the harsh reality of it all.

Ugly. Filthy. Inhuman.

Byleth turns as her Father joins her on the steps, and when he looks into the distance he zeroes in on the harmonic appearance of the emperor, long white cloth hugging her skin as though everything had been sun kissed by Gods during a new dawn.

He crosses his arms and watches with unease as the woman in question steps forward from her place in the imperial box to become the centre of attention. Now, all eyes rest on her, awestruck. Her hair shines with all the will the Gods can muster, and as she raises her voice it resounds like a song. All is quiet, all of a sudden, as though time has been frozen in place. Perhaps it is the will of the progenitor Goddess herself that lends her the strength to have her voice be heard by all.

“I declare thee winner of this most entertaining fight, Edelgard von Hresvelg!”

A thumb is raised in victory, a stark contrast against the light, and the woman down in the arena loses her grip on the severed head and falls to her knees, breath heaving up and down in a staccato. Blood kisses her legs, tinges them red until it looks as though she were wearing nothing but fine fabric.

A dressing gown of the mortal sort, grim and full of grime, yet she wears it with the pride of a person who has nothing to her name but her life. And that weighs heavy on her shoulders, pushes her down into the dirt until the echoes of the onlookers catches her ears.

But the Emperor raises her voice yet again.

“She has thus secured her first public victory! And in so doing, she shall be granted a palm branch as an offering!”

The green that follows, flutters out of the Emperor's hands into the arena, is a stark contrast to the crimson touched battlefield. When Edelgard rises to claim her prize it is with the seething anger of a hungry vulture, and as she claws for the leaf it seems to want to snap in half.

Yet it only bends under her fingers and embraces the red with quiet dignity. She humbly bows, gaze everything but kind, and turns on her heels to leave the arena under the rhythmic bellowing of the people up top.

Near the back a man approaches, and as the door creaks open he strides in with a smile that does not befit a hardened warrior. His gait is longwinded and easy-going, a stark contrast to the crimson warrior that hides away like a tired predator.

“Kosta died without dignity.”

Byleth gazes towards her companion, face expressionless yet the soft raise of an eyebrow asks him to go on, to explain further what sort of moral compass a gladiator is judged by.

“He was a criminal, for one. And when Edelgard won he did not yield.” He sighs, and looks on. “They drag his body out of the arena, and then they'll throw it into some river. No burial.”

She nods, and watches. The man dressed in clothes way too clean for such a bloody aftermath comes closer, and as he nears the body even his smile begins to fall. He seems to contemplate the issue of the dead man before him for a second, makes to look to the sky – for guidance? – but then presses on.

He moves with the certainty of a job that needs to be done, and the pride that comes from serving under a rule that has him in a position of importance. Like he knows what the dust under his feet feels like, and yet it cannot harm him anymore. As though he has bested the arena as a whole, and fears no whiplash. That sort of man is scary in his own right, she believes.

As his eyes roam over the crowd he comes to a dead halt. Not perished like the corpse before him, but frozen all the same. Byleth notes with calm horror that his attention is trained on the two of them, and then his shocked face morphs into one of genuine joy, and she is puzzled evermore.

Until she stares over towards her Father, notes the mortified, deep rooted fear rush over his face akin to fresh bleeding wounds, and begins to wonder what has him so distraught.

Then the man _waves_.

To _them_.

And before her Father can drag his body from his seat and make a run for it the Emperor has noticed, the crowd too, and suddenly the people find an entirely new spectacle to ogle at. One without blood, and yet it has run cold and boils all at once.

“We need to go, kid. Now.”

When he speaks it is with the hard evidence of battle on his face, and his mercenary orders are paramount, so she listens and bolts like an approaching storm. The steps under her are mountains to climb, every action taking more effort than the last, but she is used to long winded fights and tactical retreats. This is one of them, and there is time to ask questions later.

As Byleth turns around for a second she catches sight of the Emperor, and notes her leaving the arena with them. This is serious, then, much more serious than a simple gladiator fight has any right to be. Need they fear for their own lives? The concept of ending up battered and beaten in battle is a concerning one, so fully incomprehensible that she looks for all the red flecks in the distance, as though they could point her in a direction that is far less stained.

They seek out the nearest exit, an opening like any other, and try to dodge the bodies of curious onlookers. Some attempt to reach for them, but neither a baker nor a merchant has the necessary strength to keep either of them contained. So they go, then run once the threshold to the inner workings of the Colloseum has been crossed. Here, monuments stand tall and stone arcs make a maze of different halls and walkways. The dim light casts shadows here, hides them akin to brittle stone carvings at dusk, only their outlines visible to the world.

She almost wants to sigh in relief as they descend the stairs, but then footsteps echo and echo and instead of growing distant, the raise in volume. Her Father swiftly grabs her arm, then turns into a different direction, feet skidding across the floor. She catches her breath mid-turn, and catches sight of golden and blue garbs, before the flurry of bodies zooms past her view and she is running again, ever closer towards the exit.

They can almost see it-

An arrow plunges into the cracks in the stone, shot just between their heads, a warning shot if not a graceful one. Because the arrow cannot find hold long enough between the stones, and so it topples, then falls. The recoiling sound that follows, moves up into her ears and settles there, is low but wooden, unpleasant not because she is unused to such weapons, but due to the weight of the situation itself.

An airy laughter howls right after, toothy even from afar, and Byleth can just imagine the smile on the archer's face. Her Father seems to plan to move, but thinks better of it given the current state of their plan, which was little of one to begin with.

“Shit, kid, never should've gotten you in here.”

He stands in front of her, for what it's worth.

Shields her with his body because he is a protector.

What saunters over to them is a boy barely worth of the moniker ‘man', twirling a second arrow between dexterous fingers, voice light and without a care, seemingly. He dons a cape marking him as a gladiator, though hardly carries himself as such.

“No running in the halls, hey!”

When he comes to a stop a few steps away from them he lets his body rest against a wall, foot up to better balance himself. The arrow ever turns in a perpetual motion, always with the same flick of his fingers.

In the distance, blue flutters, offset only be the occasional red patch, the fabric obviously more used to fights than the one worn by their trouble-shooter. It is with wonder that Byleth realises how young the man in blue looks, so boyish he should be stuck in a temple to pray rather than slay animals or worse. Full cheeks and babyfat, and tousled blonde locks offset by porcelain skin.

Byleth wonders how young Edelgard must look, up close.

Then raises her gaze to the most noble presenting new arrival, who offers a bow without breaking a sweat, his voice even.  
“I humbly thank you for cooperating. I implore you, running might well be a bad idea.”

A chuckle resounds from his partner, and the arrow flies up in the air in a show of bravado, only to land back in his hands. “Dimitri here is a beast, you'd better follow the rules.”

“Might I remind you of the fact that you hardly ever do, Claude?” Dimitri has positioned himself advantageously in front of the way towards the nearest exit.

A grin, so fake it couldn't even cut an edge. “_Nonsense_.”

She grimly notes that Claude holds off the most strategically advantageous other directions they could flee towards. Her Father sighs, and steps onto the arrow on the ground to keep it secure. Then he shakes his head, making her wonder about his next words.

“They've gotten younger yet, huh.”

He begins to rub his arms, a comforting action to stop himself from fumbling to gain access to hidden weapons. Byleth rests a hand on his shoulder, squeezes once. She knows little about his backstory, has only ever known him as her personal hero.

“You are keeping us here.” She states the obvious as hard facts, and glances down to her boot, the dagger normally secured near her hip now hidden away so that people may not notice. Like her Father, she is restless. Unlike him, she knows more restraint.

Claude nods. “Kinda expected, given your sudden departure from the arena. Are you thieves? Or just weak stomached?”

“It is our duty. I am under the impression that Emperor Rhea would like a word with you. An impromptu audience is no small feat to achieve.” Dimitri scratches his cheek almost shyly. “We, ah, ought to escort you to her.”

“It was a setup, then.” Spoken with sharpness, the voice carries an edge. Byleth glances over to her Father, sees the way his lips move and teeth grind upon one another.

“It wasn't like we didn't have to adjust before", Claude cuts in, “I mean, we were supposed to fight that bastard together, before Edelgard stole the whole show.”

Dimitri yet seems to try to placate the situation as best as possible. “There must be a reason for it. Anyhow, I hate to press the issue, yet-"

He stops in his tracks, and steps resound. A hollow, almost unrecognizable flutter of feet arrive in record time. Advisors, guards, gladiators. Whichever position the arena seems to be able to spare it does, and the tranquillity of the short disillusion of fanfare is only offset by the stench of iron in the air.

As the group of people scatter into different formations Byleth sees white cloth and stained skin and everything in-between. Guards caked in dust stand proud and tall, fierce except for the one donning a perpetual smile. Advisors in fine robes fall in line with the steps of the Emperor, ever watchful, and the only one that stands out is the man glancing over towards a girl seemingly way too young to find joy in death.

In the shadows, the dried blood flakes off of Edelgard's legs as she moves.

Dimitri's body turns rigid at once.

Claude, on the other hand, simply waves leisurely.

“About time, I'd say. You must be real special, dragging the Emperor out of her lair.”

The comment causes Dimitri to hit him in the ribs, and given his clenched teeth the action must have hurt more than the young man had intended. Sticking to his bravado of a charming smile, it yet lacks the strength to disarm, but Claude tries his best.

It isn't enough to make Edelgard put on more than a frown, but she comes to a halt next to the Emperor with the rest of her little entourage. Byleth notes that all of the attention is trained on herself and her Father, and feels the atmosphere cool visibly.  
Only one man yet dons a smile in a natural fashion, and he visibly beams with enthusiasm.

“Jeralt! How long has it been? It is so good to see you!”

Her Father, disturbed by all the commotion, sighs in defeat. “Alois. It has been...a while.”

Said man does not get to press for questions that dance on his tongue, however, as the melodic voice of the Emperor herself begins to echo. The sound seems unnatural, coming from between halls not meant for lingering, but maybe people touched by Gods are more in tune with nature and the way the world works.

She raises her whisper to a shattering statement, a melody wound tightly, giving no way for silence. “Jeralt, my _Blade Breaker_. It is an utmost honour to see you grace us with your presence.”

Claude raises an eyebrow, still leisurely leaning against the wall.

Edelgard sizes them both up, searching for an unnamed objective.

Dimitri, instead, opens his mouth to speak, but comes up short of finishing his sentence. “Blade...?”

Byleth knows next to nothing of her Father's past. It rushes to the surface akin to a broken dam that is spilling secrets. Has it been this cold before?

A voice inside of her shivers from the drop in temperature._ “How fascinating, if bone chilling.”_

“That is all well and good", a low rumble cuts in. The man yet shielding a younger girl frowns with all the power of a person lacking patience. “Yet we have more pressing matters to attend to. Even an old champion such as him should not distract us from our duties. And what is that child doing here?”

Byleth feels herself stare ahead with all the strength of an adult. The two young men and Edelgard look yet much younger than her, and yet almost all of them wear blood as battle trophies. It baffles her how this man can insinuate her incompetence, but she says no word.

“Seteth, we shall have ever the time in the world, should I wish for it. And a reunion with an old friend is a noble endeavour.”

Smiling brightly, the Emperor turns her attention back to Jeralt. “How has life fared you so far? I yet remember you parting ways with being my champion, fighting under Seiros' guidance. Have you founded a new family yet? Is this child from your own blood and flesh, and carved from battles outside of the arena?”

The curious gaze transfixed on Jeralt squints into something barely sinister, but the smile plastered onto her lips is yet carved as a statue would be. Rhea seems less alive than even that, standing with the tranquillity of an otherworldly nature. Byleth finds her world turned over, crumbling underneath her fingertips, and as she wonders about the truth of it all a hand finds rest upon her shoulder.

Jeralt squeezes it, once, in reassurance. “She's a good kid. Don't dare drag her into this.”

The Emperor analyses her with fondness, or at least a semblance of such. It might well be nothing but a farce, but lacks any edge. No one would cut themselves on the motherly crinkle of her eyes, or the soft spoken words that rise from her throat. “Oh, but I believe she would truly be _godlike_ in the arena.”

The voice inside of her laughs._ “Godlike, she says.”_

Yet before it can continue to snicker at her torment Seteth speaks up. “She is, at most, a mercenary, given her state of dress. No former glory of her Father changes this simple truth.” A sigh, then he continues. “I truly hope you see to reason-"

“Jeralt is, of course, welcome to re-join the ranks of my closest allies. It would be a pleasure to have you on board. You, _and_ your child. I promise to not force her to participate in life or death matches, you have my word.” A wave of a hand, and Rhea's advisor is silent once more.

Byleth masks what little emotion dares to break her face in two, but cannot help herself from looking over to her Father. He gulps visibly, hands clenched to fists, chin raised up high as though to seem taller. Claude and Dimitri yet block whichever way would lead to freedom, she notes, and Edelgard watches hawk-like from the side-lines.

The entire situation is no welcoming ceremony, it is a raised lance, a twirling arrow, a bloodied axe. No invitation rests in the palm of the Emperor, but a threat, and Byleth feels how a thread hugs her windpipe to choke the air out of her.

The Emperor looks directly at her, and as she extends her hand it yet looks stained with red, despite the purity of it within a sea of mortal waves. Whatever fate she cradles between her fingers, it belongs to a cold embrace.

“I wish for you to become a _Lanista_ and teach one of my personally handpicked groups of newly acquired gladiators.”


End file.
